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Seishiro Sakurazuka
Seishiro Sakurazuka (桜塚星史郎, Sakurazuka Seishirō) is one of the protagonist in Tokyo Babylon. Appearance Personality He appears as a kindly veterinarian engaged in a love-hate relationship with the onmyoji Subaru Sumeragi. He is also known as the Sakurazukamori, Japan’s number one assassin. History Seishirō was born in the mid-1960s to Setsuka Sakurazuka, a member of the Sakurazukamori Cherry Tree burial mound guardian (桜塚護?), an assassin clan empowered by black onmyodo and represented by an inverted pentagram. A Sakurazukamori is expected to kill their target without compunction, as well as their relatives and anyone else who sees them at their grim work. Sakurazukamori's attacks involves shikigami, ofuda (paper spells often thrown at targets) and hand-to-hand combat. They can also wield massive illusions, heralded by uncanny showers of cherry blossoms, in which victims can be trapped and killed. A person targeted by the Sakurazukamori may glimpse a ghostly cherry tree, whose blossoms are always in bloom even out of season. Although it is stated to have many "allies and clients", the clan of the Sakurazukamori in fact consists of only one member at a time, with the new Sakurazukamori killing their predecessor. Thus, from an early age Seishirō was trained to become the next Sakurazukamori, both in terms of his physical and magical abilities; he was also raised to be devoid of emotions such as love and hate, and to place no value on human life. At the age of 15, Seishirō killed his mother Setsuka and assumed the role, subsequently noting that: "I felt nothing. Though drenched in my mother's blood... I felt nothing. And those I killed after that were the same." As she died, Setsuka prophesied that her son would one day be killed by the one he loved most (as she had been), a notion that Seishirō dismissed as impossible. In the mid-1980s, Seishirō had an encounter during one of his assassin missions: he had just killed a small girl when an innocent 9-year-old boy approached him, and attempted to exorcize the illusionary cherry tree that accompanied him. Seishirō, not realising at the time that the child was the future head of the Sumeragi clan, was nonetheless intrigued, and held off from killing the boy as he should have done; instead, he whispered a bet to him (much of which he subsequently obscured from the boy's memory): "If you and I should ever meet again, let us live together for one year. My heart is the direct inverse of yours... you are kind, pure, and honest and I am sure that is how you will continue to grow up. Your heart will remain pure. So, if we should ever meet again, I will try me hardest to learn to love you. Just for one year... and after that year, if I can consider you 'special', you will have won and I wll not kill you. But if I decide that I cannot consider you special to me -- if I cannot distinguish the difference between you and that corpse, then... I will kill you and so today... I will let you go." Seishirō then kissed the boy on the backs of his hands, marking them with inverted pentagrams, so that he would recognise him if, as in the bet, they ever met again. Plot Seishirō subsequently created the "legimate front" of a humble, bespectacled vet working in Shinjuku, Tokyo. His concern for animal life is entirely false: the animals in his surgery were in fact "sacrificed in his stead", suffering the backlash (逆凪, sakanagi) from deadly attack spells he had used. In 1991 he meets up with 16-year-old Subaru Sumeragi, Japan's most powerful onmyoji, after the latter's shikigami causes an unlikely meeting between the two at Ikebukuro train station. Seishirō, now 25 years old, recognises Subaru as the boy he had marked as "prey" years before (despite the fact that Subaru now wore magically-enchanted gloves to conceal the pentagrams), and begins a year of courtship that will ultimately change both of their lives. Often he professes his love for the boy, with Subaru's eccentric twin sister Hokuto enthusiastically supporting the pairing, much to Subaru’s embarrassment. Seishirō also protects Subaru on several occasions, even sacrificing his right eye to protect Subaru from a knife-wielding attacker. Though freely sharing his knowledge of the occult and occasionally using his powers, Seishirō obscures his true identity and personal details (as an onmyōji could be attacked by someone knowing their true date and place of birth) and avoids admitting even the derivation of his own last name. Hokuto suspects he is the Sakurazukamori (even half-jokingly threatening to kill him if he ever hurt her brother), but continues to try to bring the two together. Seishirō appears amused by the decadence of Tokyo society ("Where else on Earth do so many people enjoy their descent into destruction?"), and notes that people are entirely self-motivated ("Even when we want to do something for another person, it's only because we want the satisfaction that we made someone else happy"). However, by himself, Seishirō often broods on his own nature ("Kindness... and a "pure" heart... two things that couldn't be more alien to me."), and frequently hints at the bet he made with Subaru. On one occasion he conceals his assassin nature from Subaru by rendering the latter unconscious when about to carry out a hit. When the year had passed, Subaru finally realises his love for Seishirō, but at this point Seishirō reveals his true nature as the Sakurazukamori, as well as the nature of the bet. He traps Subaru inside an illusion (featuring the same cherry tree under which they had met many years before) and tortures him, all the while insisting that he was unmoved and thinks of Subaru as no more than an "object", and wondering why Subaru is upset when similar "betrayals" happen across Tokyo every day. He almost kills the young onmyōji, but Subaru's grandmother intervenes to free him from the illusion, leaving herself crippled as a result. Seishirō disappears from Subaru's life after this point; Hokuto, fearing that he will come after her brother, offers up her own life in his place. Seishirō accepts and stabs her through the heart; with her last breath, Hokuto casts a spell whose effects would subsequently be revealed in X''. At the end of ''Tokyo Babylon, Seishirō is seen to have acquired a glass eye to replace the eye he had lost. He also exchanges his normal spectacles for a pair of sunglasses to conceal this. Tokyo Babylon 1999 In the live-action sequel to CLAMP's manga, Seishirō Sakurazuka is portrayed by Shihodo Wataru. In the film, the Sakurazukamori assassinates a former enemy of the Sumeragi clan; however, his signature hand-through-the-chest style of killing is dropped in favor of magically strangling his victims. No references to his characteristic cherry blossoms are made. Relationships Subaru Sumeragi In Tokyo Babylon, Seishirō claims to be in love with Subaru and frequently protects him from danger. However, he reveals it was all a scam, and claims that he really felt nothing for Subaru at all, reinforcing this fact by attempting to kill the 16-year-old Subaru, and ultimately killing his beloved sister. Throughout X'', Seishirō often engages in battle with Subaru, frequently appearing to have gone easy on the younger man. He is victorious for the most part, and frequently teases Subaru by calling him cute and criticizing his nicotine addiction. Seishirō's true feelings for Subaru are ambiguous, particularly given Subaru's reaction to Seishirō's last words. It is clear in ''Tokyo Babylon, that Subaru has feelings for him, which continue to linger in X''. Despite Subaru's proclaimed hatred for Seishirō, Subaru is visibly devastated by Seishirō's death and holds the older man's body closely as he dies. Hokuto Sumeragi Setsuka Sakurazuka Seishirō’s relationship with his mother Setsuka, the previous ''Sakurazukamori, is borderline incestuous. The drama CD states that he was taken away from her right after he was born, and the two wouldn't see each other until Seishirō reached nine years of age. Setsuka herself is a woman who looks extremely young and acts very affectionately and free-spiritedly in Seishirō’s eyes, but this comes up with a darker twist; she speaks openly and almost cheerfully about her duty as the Sakurazukamori in front of young Seishirō and kisses him on the lips at least twice, once during his first visit, and the other right before she dies. Setsuka is the one who prophesizes Seishirō’s death at the hands of the “one he loved the most”, and the succession of the next Sakurazukamori, as she lays dying in Seishirō’s arms. Other Media An alternate version of the character appears in Clamp's crossover series, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles. Trivia *He returns in the apocalyptic manga X as a soldier in the battle of Armageddon, a Dragon of Earth. Category:Characters Category:Males